PON News Feb 2011

We have new members! Great to see Larry and Carl—thanks for coming out. Larry draws the short straw in living next to Jon P, so looks like trailer loading and unloading will become a skill. Carl has spent many years leading walking groups both at home and abroad, so next time County want a walk leader, I know a man who can. Thanks too, of course, to the rest of you who worked on Sunday and as always thanks to Audrey for the coffee.

I thought it might be timely to blog on the current status of footpath work in the parish so that everyone is up to speed and also to provide a platform for comments, suggestions and so on. Please feel very free to add comments, at least it will show someone is reading this lot.

A list of problems on Martley’s 41 miles of rights of way has until the last week or so, been kept on an Excel spreadsheet on my PC at home. Additions to this list come through the observations of ourselves (mainly), local people and visitors. At the same time, Countryside Services at County Hall maintain a database for the whole county, including Martley. Each year we would try to synchronise these two lists, never very satisfactorily. County receive complaints from members of the public that we are not aware of, until we compare the lists. At last, tho, County have commissioned their Interactive Map and this has transformed the problem reporting process. I have discarded my spreadsheet after synchronising with the IA map (thanks Ben for the help). I am now able to log in to the map, find the exact problem location, create a Volunteer Point and send it directly to our area officer (Tracy Sutton). If we resolve a problem then I create a VP, and once Tracy has seen it, she removes the flag from the map. Absolutely fantastic! Everyone has access to this map to see the range of problems but not everyone is allowed to log in and make alterations. Facilities are there to print out a report of problems and look up any details. Should you like to see a demo, just ask me.

After this weekend’s (Feb 20th) marvellous efforts, where we very satisfyingly, knocked off 9 or so problems at the extreme west of the parish local to Ham Bridge, an area that we haven’t been to for years, the overall parish status is:


Stiles and Gates issues--10
Signposts (roadside) and waymark posts issues--15
Signing--1
Bridges and ditch crossings--4
Drainage/ wet routes--2
Handrails/ steps—2
Obstructions--3
Non-resolvable issues --6
TOTAL—43

Of course, come April, clearance will take over, so this is the time of year we need to sort out furniture problems.

A word of explanation might help regarding two of the above. We are assisting with the renovation of a local millpool, including bridges. In fact JP has built, and we have painted, a 5m long, 1m wide steel bridge with handrails. A few of us are required to go to the factory to pre-assemble this, then most of us will be needed to install it, including shuttering and building concrete bulwarks. Quite a job, but the rewards are worth it to the group. At this same location, there remains some tree felling, clearance, bridges replacement (washed away in 2007) and levelling. This will go on into the summer. This latter work is outside of our work for County, so participation is even more voluntary than usual.
The other major project is for County down at Kingswood. It is of great interest too, to the Earth Heritage Trust, who are partially financing the repair work, as it is on the route of their Geo Park way. Here, nearly at the end of Kingswood Lane, the path goes left, steeply down to the river. There are numerous springs that have turned the path into a quagmire, making the route almost impassable. We believe we can fix this by judicious trenching, piping and back filling with gravel, but it is a BIG job with a certain amount of landowner liaison required. We are not just yet in a position to go ahead but will keep you posted, then, I dare say, ask for a bit of help!

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